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It's always nice to get a refresher course on world history. We particularly enjoyed researching your question because, during our pursuit, we learned a lot about Athena, the Parthenon, and missing Greek statues -- most of which we probably should've remembered in the first place. For starters, the statue is called the Athena Parthenos and it was designed by master Greek sculptor Pheidias in the fifth century BC. While it no longer stands today, we know the statue's history through descriptions and replicas. A very comprehensive overview of The Parthenon offers the following sketch of the monument: "Pheidias' forty-foot high statue of Athena Parthenos
consisted of a frame made of wood, metal, clay, and plaster. Athena's clothing was of gold plate -- made removable in case of emergency. Athena's face, hands, and feet were of ivory, her eyes of precious jewels." But where did the statue end up? Unfortunately, the site doesn't really say. We went back to the Web, searching on the words "Athena Parthenos" for any clues. That's when we stumbled onto the promisingly named Parthenon Diner in Branford, Connecticut. There we learned that the statue was taken to Constantinople during the Crusades, where it was later destroyed. (We also learned that the Parthenon's famous Cream Cheesecake is only $2.50 a slice!) After crosschecking the information with a keyword search on "Athena
statue Constantinople" and finding several corroborating sites, we continued to dive deeper into the world of Greek antiquity. We visited several sites illustrating and discussing the famous Elgin Marbles, statues and friezes from the Parthenon that a British ambassador bought from Turkey in the 1800s, which now reside in the British Museum's Parthenon Galleries in London. While the Elgin Marbles aren't likely to be destroyed, either intentionally or by accident, the Greek people are still anxious to get them back. We even found a series of letters from Greek fourth- and fifth-graders
pleading for the return of their historical treasures.
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